


Visit to Versailles

by arachnistar



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Pete's World, Post-Episode: s02e04 The Girl in the Fireplace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-18
Updated: 2014-05-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 15:26:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1653458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arachnistar/pseuds/arachnistar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their first trip out in their new TARDIS – it was supposed to be fun and maybe dangerous and definitely a new brilliant start to their life together. Not revisiting the past and certainly not revisiting this particular moment in the past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Visit to Versailles

**Author's Note:**

> Written for kilodalton's prompt "tentoo/rose, versailles" on tumblr and finally posted here.

“You go dance.” Rose looks away, out to the dancing couples. Reinette is there in a beautiful, golden gown greeting a duke or a count, Rose doesn’t know and doesn’t much care. “It must be nice, seeing her again.” 

“I don’t want to dance with her.” The Doctor reaches out and rests a hand on her arm. “I only want to dance with you. You know that.”

“Course I do. It’s just – “ She cuts herself off.

It’s just being here is bringing up all the old ghosts, bringing up moments when she didn’t know, when all she could do was doubt and hope and dream. She feels nineteen, twenty, again and she hates it. Of all the places to go on their first trip in their new TARDIS, it had to be here.

“We can go.”

She sighs. “No. First trip and all, can’t just run off now.” He continues to frown and she gestures to where elegant couples whirl by. “Go on, have fun.”

“Well, alright.”

Before she can so much as blink, he’s whisked her into his arms and twirled them both on to the dance floor. She’s supposed to be cross and she is, past him for giving her these wounds in the first place, this him for bringing her here (or is that the fault of their young TARDIS? she’s never sure whether the driver or the ship deserves the blame and usually she doesn’t care because random adventures can be the best, just not this time), herself for allowing the wounds to open up even years after, even when she knows he loves her, but nonetheless she laughs at his gesture.

“You’re supposed to ask before sweeping me off my feet.”

He smirks. “Already knew the answer, didn’t I? I was just saving us time.” 

They glide across the floor and she tries to have fun, she really does. Tries to focus on the here-and-now, on the feel of the Doctor’s hand in hers, on the swell of string instruments, but it’s impossible. Her mind is a maelstrom of other thoughts, of memories and emotions long shoved aside, and every time she spots a glimpse of Reinette spinning by, very much the swan, something in her shrieks and cracks. It’s not fair, she knows it’s not, but she can’t help it. And the Doctor’s face is even worse because it was never Reinette’s fault, not really, but –  

“Rose? You’re spacing.”

She keeps her eyes away as she says, “We never talked about it.”

“No. It was always off to the next adventure and -” He hesitates as if he isn’t sure he should say it. She fixes him with a stare and he caves. “I wanted to move on and, well, I didn’t realize it was such a big deal to you.”

Anger sparks in her eyes, hot and fast and furious, before dropping, a heavy stone settling in her stomach. There’s no use getting angry at him now; it won’t change the past, won’t change the hours she spent crying in her room or his apparent ignorance over her hurt. Just like him too, not to notice. But then she’d hidden it well. Learned from the best, how to hide and smile and pretend everything was okay.

In her most rational tone (which she figures isn’t quite as rational as she would like at the moment), she replies, “You left Mickey and me on a spaceship in the 51st century with no sign that you could find your way back. A bit of a big deal, that is.”

“I would have come back.”

Rose shakes her head. “We didn’t know that.”

And she’s not sure he knew that either, not sure if he had any concrete plans beyond jumping through the portal and saving Reinette from clockwork droids.

“But you still waited.”

“Well yeah, had to give you a little time, didn’t we?” He smiles but his smile quickly falls with her next words. “Not like we had anywhere else to go anyway. We were stuck on that ship. Waiting was about all we could do.”

“Nah, you would have figured something else out eventually. Come to France and saved me instead.”

“And given you a proper chewing-out. Should have done that anyway.”

But she hadn’t. She’d given him the cold shoulder for a few days, an awful set of days, and then it was back to business as usual, the rush of their adventures washing out the sour taste of France. Or more accurately burying it deep down. Out of sight, out of mind.

Until now, of course.   

“The TARDIS did. Hid all the jam from me for weeks and switched up the water temperatures when I was showering. One minute it’d be fine, the next I’d be drenched in icy-cold water.”

Rose tries to resist smiling, but she can’t help it. “Yeah?”

“Yep. Dreadful couple weeks.”

“You deserved it.”

“Suppose I did, yeah.”

Rose looks away at his admittance. She doesn’t want this conversation. Doesn’t want the words she could have used years ago spoken now. Doesn’t want any of this to be at the surface again, just when things had settled after Bad Wolf Bay. All she wants is for the issue to be buried under a slew of new memories, forgotten in some dusty corner like it was nothing.

Which it was. Nothing. So why did it have to fester, why did they have to end up here where everything rushed out?   

This was supposed to be one of their new memories, something wonderful and precious like so many of the ones they’d already made in this universe. Their first trip out in their new TARDIS – it was supposed to be fun and maybe dangerous and definitely a new brilliant start to their life together. Not revisiting the past and certainly not revisiting this particular moment in the past. Well, at least it wasn’t a space station in the 51st century with doors to 18th century France and clockwork droids.

A light squeeze on her hand and his voice brings her out of her thoughts.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t.”

“I’m sorry?”  

Rose sighs and makes a decision. “Doctor, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Right, of course, not talking, dancing only.”

 They dance in silence for the next few minutes. There’s a respectable distance between them as they go through the steps and it all feels empty. She wants to enjoy being with him and if it was any other ball, she would. Any other place and everything would be fine. But it’s eighteenth century France and painful memories cling tighter than they should.

The band finishes the current waltz and then immediately jumps into a new song. Couples around them switch partners, but the Doctor simply holds her tighter. They continue dancing, this time their steps slower.  

“Rose.”    

“Hmm?”

He pulls her closer and then leans his head down to whisper against her ear, “I love you.”

Those are the right words to make all her concerns and preoccupations with the past dissipate. She thinks it’ll always be these three words reminding her that the past is past, that this is their present and future, that yesterday’s ghosts can’t touch her, that he loves her and she loves him and that’s the way things are.

“I love you too.” She murmurs back, relaxing in his arms for the first time this evening.

“I don’t want Reinette. You know that, right Rose? I never did. I was just helping her and maybe I got a bit caught up in saving the day or okay, maybe a lot, but I never wanted to get stuck in France and I wanted to get back to you and the TARDIS and I was thinking about hitching a ride with another me to get back when it turned out the fireplace still worked and – “

“I know, Doctor.”  

He clamps his mouth shut and then hazards a small smile. She smiles back.

“Can we go now?”

“To the TARDIS, Rose Tyler?” He offers her an arm and she takes it with a grin.

“To space and time.”

_And us._


End file.
